Northwestern University Newsfeed

January 4, 2006

MILLER: It doesn’t say that you could not in schools teach religion if you taught it in a broad comparative way not as advocating one way view over the other, but saying this is what Hindus believe…this is what Muslims believe…this is what Jews believe…this is what Catholics believe. You can do that. The trouble is that the most fundamental religionists who are pushing on these questions don’t really want you to teach comparative religion…they want you to teach their religion.

Miller says its difficult for creationists and evolutionists to co-exist in an academic environment…

MILLER: If you see the story as Adam and Eve as metaphorical, then you can live quiet comfortably with evolution. The Catholic Church has done that for a few hundred years. If you want to say that human beings were created as separate entities that have no other relationship to any other life form, then you are flying in the face of science. Simply, the evidence isn’t there for that.

Miller says it’s not impossible for the religious to believe in evolution…

MILLER: One can think and be very much a part of the broader Christian tradition…or the broader Jewish tradition…or the broader Islamic tradition…or the broader Hindu tradition…or Confuscists also for that matter…at a sufficiently metaphorical level that you are willing to accept that there may be a divine organizing cause of the universe at some point. But, that’s not to say that every detail of biology was previously designed and is already fully known and it’s simply someone playing out the score as a conductor would play a symphony.

Miller says the debate over evolution is fueled in part by the limits of the human experience…

MILLER: We are very much a work in progress. And it’s hard for people in a lifetime that may average 70 or 80 years to see that because the time frames we have for human lives are so short compared to geologic time or cosmic time.